AS instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton slinks and frontman Aidan Moffat swaggers onto stage with supporting band in tow, the crowd and band are raring to go. At the end of a long tour in Europe and the UK, Arab Strap must be glad to be back in Glasgow. There’s always a great welcome for a homecoming gig in the city, and it’s a good turn out for the veteran rockers in the the sold-out Barrowlands Ballroom. There’s something for everyone here with new and old material on offer (with a skew towards new), and the energy is tense and excitable.
From the hammering drums of the set’s first song Allatonceness (from the band’s critically acclaimed latest album, "I’m totally fine with it 👍 don’t give a fuck any more👍") to the sad (but inexplicably triumphant) finish on Philophobia’s Soaps, the band’s performance is excellent. The songs are clearly well rehearsed, and the sound in the venue is fantastic (when isn’t it?). The band hit all the right notes, aside from a small and memorable slip-up from Moffat on You’re Not There despite the printed words in front of him, and it’s a clear and confident performance.
Arab Strap’s music can hardly be described as music to dance to – the band have mused about the melancholy nature of their material in interviews and songs like Tears on Tour – but the gathered masses don’t seem to mind that one bit. Fans belt out the words to the new and old material alike, though the hearty reception to The Shy Retirer does make you think some in the crowd were hoping for something more familiar. Muted calls for older tracks ring out in the time between songs, particularly during the encore.
Moffat doesn’t talk a great deal – the band let their performance do the talking – but old songs are introduced as being “about shagging”, “also about shagging”, and “about not shagging”. Newer songs often focus on the toxic culture we’ve formed since 2005’s The Last Romance: synth-heavy Bliss highlights social media trolling and there’s criticism of the anti-immigration rhetoric that’s taken hold in recent years in The Fable of the Urban Fox (with Moffat’s pointed pre-track criticism of this drawing loud cheers from the crowd).
There’s a tension in any reformed band between returning to refined material and innovating. An emphasis on the former might keep some long-term fans happy, but the new material (and its emphasis within the setlist) makes it clear that Arab Strap have come back not to relive halcyon days, but because they have more to say. If the earlier Arab Strap songs are confessional, attempting to atone for past sins (or maybe just revelling in them), the new songs hold a mirror up to us and demand that we do the same.
One thing is clear in all this, which is that with Arab Strap your night’s entertainment is in safe hands. It might just leave you with more to think about.
